Iron Man. What a film! A wonderful performance from RDJ and a great yarn in its own right. It stood alone as a shining beacon of what a Marvel movie could be. And success found it (even beating Batman Begins for box office dollars in the same year).
Iron Man movie poster
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So many wonderful and beloved movies and TV shows have been successfully spun out from this film into what we now know as The Marvel Cinematic Universe. We're covered until 2020!
The MCU Phase Three plan
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This gives so many people joy. They know that they're gonna get their quality superhero movie fix three times a year now. It's almost like a cinematic soap opera. On top of that there's the quality of TV shows like Daredevil and Agent Carter (I'm not a huge fan of Agents of Shield - it's improving but still off the pace in my opinion).
I count myself as one of the big fans of the MCU. But I do also see the problems.
As a kid, I was deeply in love with Spider-Man: The Animated series and the phenomenal X-Men animated series. I like so many before (and after) me, was hooked on the characters and desperately wanted to learn more.
Spider-Man: The Original Animated Series
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There is such a deep history of stories for the classic comic book characters that it's hugely daunting trying to find an easy-access point.
*I'm gonna mention now that I am a huge fan of long-form storytelling. You kinda have to be in you want to read Manga stories with over 800 issues (for example One Piece)
However, every Spider-Man or X-Men story I read had little notes throughout it explaining that "X happened in Uncanny X-Men issue 137" (for example). I didn't have the money to get all the comics I needed to fill in the complete story! It was unfathomably annoying and I basically rage-quit Marvel.
I see this truncated story-arch system of Marvel's comics starting to rear its ugly head in the MCU. No better example of this is Avengers: Age of Ultron. But The Dark World suffered from it as well.
A:AoU was never going to please everyone to begin with thanks to the success of the first Avengers movie. But specifically A:AoU was trying to serve so many other masters that if forgot the number one rule of the blockbuster movie... Tell an exciting story.
They might as well have had, "Previously on Avengers..." before the movie and a sizzle reel of highlights from The Avengers, Dark World and Winter Soldier to catch everyone up and give context to large portions of the movie.
Please Marvel, before you go too far down this route...
Turn back! Before it's too late!
Let your stories stand on their own and maybe give little nods to the larger universe you're building.
Guardians of The Galaxy was awesome and it had to excessive "required watching" for people to understand it.
Antman, for all its shortcomings, was a good stand-alone story. In many ways it harkened back to the Phase One movie model. A time when the connective tissue wasn't so overt. Agent Coulson popping in for a scene or two; Fury coming in to chastise RDJ. We didn't need more. Although I will admit that we all wanted more. I guess it's a case of "careful what you wish for" or "too much of a good thing".
The other down side of the MCU is something that angers me infinitely more that what Marvel are doing...
There are so many wannabes and out-and-out frauds; all of them trying to cash in on this notion of a shared cinematic universe where they have no reason besides the big promises of gold falling from consumer pockets! I imagine many-a producer having the Scrooge McDuck daydream.
DC movies are building the "shared universe", but from the rumours, there isn't going to be as much cross-pollination compared to the MCU movies.
Already I think I prefer this style. It plays more like an anthology series, but still gets a lot of the "required watching" out of the way.
Its not a perfect solution, but at least it's something a little different to the MCU. Time will tell which was the better option. On my podcast, Imaginarium Of The Masses, I will fan-fic the shit out of this topic at a later date.
Now we come to the most aggregious "shared universe" flaunters.
The Ghostbuster reboot is apparently being tooled to have some form of expanded universe... NO! Please don't. This movie needn't have been made in the first place. No matter how good this movie may be, having some much of the original cast in it is simply gonna remind the original fans that they aren't watching the movie they had dreamed of.
My apprehension and early (unreasonable) hatred for this movie has nothing to do with the all-female cast, or Paul Feig directing it or anything so simple.
I firmly believe that Hollywood should learn to leave some things in the past. Back to The Future for example. Or Gremlins. Or Goonies.
And why a shared universe?!
Men In Black crossing over with 21 jump Street? Really? Get MiB back on the ack first and then maybe... Maybe.
Now, a movie that should have a shared universe is The Matrix.
This has so much potential and, even after 2/3 of a bad movie trilogy, people still think fondly of the Matrix brand.
Think back to the first Matrix, "...the peak of your civilisation". What if there were multiple Matrix Hubs for each Nation.
Western society, they Matrix is based off turn-of-the-century society.
Japan could maybe be based off feudal Japan history etc...
But I digress - and will go deeper into this on a forthcoming Inaginarium of The Masses episode - part of my own "cinematic shared universe".
Hey guys,
Just so you know, the latest episode of G&T Podcast will be up this evening.
Also, this coming week, we will be discussing our personal Top 5 Disney movies.
Now, the stipulations are that it does not include Pixar, Star Wars or Marvel and is at least 50% animated.
What are you favourite Disney movies?
Hey guys, we're gonna be discussing our personal Top 5 best performances in this week's show.
We want to hear some of your choices!
I'm sure that some of you have been wondering what ever happened to the fan-fic-centric Imaginarium of The Masses podcast.
Well I'm here to tell you that it will be returning soon.
G&TPodcast will be going on a brief hiatus fairly soon whilst Travis i on holiday. But we will be using that time to relaunch Imaginarium of The Masses.
Stay tuned for more information over the next few weeks anyways that you can be a part of the show.
Hey there guys,
Your intrepid Podcasting duo will be recording the latest episode of G&T Podcast later tonight.
We want to hear from you!
Do you have a question you've been desperately wanting people to discuss in a non-sensical manner?
If you're a Twitter user: #gandtpodcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fried-Brain-Productions-1537872736448892/timeline/
Greetings and salutations,
After a rather rough first volume of Imaginarium of The Masses, I have taken a long, hard look at the style of the show.
I now have a few exciting ideas that I am going to put into place to make Volume Two far more interesting and interactive.
The first thing that I will be setting up is a full advance episode listing. This will enable any and all listeners to follow along and even submit their own Imaginariums for the same topics of discussion as each episode.
I am moving house at the moment, but after about two/three weeks Volume Two will begin airing.
In the interim I will be posting the episode listings and other elements over the next few days.
Until then, stay creative.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I just wanted to share with you some news.
After searching for so long trying to find the perfect artist for the Chimera comic series, I was given the idea to attempt something new.
My partner gave me the idea to experiment with adapting Chimera into a traditional book.
Well... it's been about two weeks of tinkering and testing, but I am pleased to announce that the initial prologue and first chapter have taken shape. While they are not perfect yet, they are certainly better than I originally thought possible.
I have enough faith in myself and definitely in the story that this will be a great challenge and quality first book.
I will be posting samples of the novel as they are written and edited.
Thank you all so much for your continued patience.
See you all soon.
Welcome everybody!
Firstly thank you so much for visiting my site.
This is your one-stop Fried Brain Productions entertainment central hub.
On this site you will find early-access to production artwork and scripts, podcasts, you will be able to purchase t-shirts and other wonderfully unnecessary bits to tempt, tittalate and waste your time brilliantly.
It may be a little sparse right now, but I am going to endeavour to populate it with as much content as I possibly can. And I urge you to do the same!
So thanks again for dropping by and I look forward to entertaining you very soon.
George Terran
